Active duty military outcome

[Krodgers]

I’m active duty navy 19 y/o with a year and a half of service and had valve replacment replaced with tissue valve 6 months ago they put me on a medical separation board anyone have any similar situations and what the possible outcomes are and possibly what way they usually lean toward I won’t be deployable.

 

[Chuck C]

Hi Krodgers.

Hopefully there will be some members who can help with your specific question.

The one piece of advice that I will give you is to keep up with your echos. This is especially important for a young person with a tissue valve, as the young tend to go through them very quickly.
At age 19, you are probably looking at getting 5 to 10 years from your valve, possibly less.

I point this out because once you get a year or two away from your valve surgery, you probably won't think about your valve much anymore and will be busy living life. This is as it should be, just remember to be diligent with your follow up appointments. I also say this because I know how I was in my 20s and was not the best at getting medical check ups as often as I should have.

So, live life to the fullest, but get your echos at least every year, maybe even every 6 months. The last thing that you want to do is to forget about your follow up visits and then have SVD sneak up on you, and end up getting your next procedure in the ER. Due you your age, you will be facing several procudures during your life and you want to get them done before the point where irreversible damage occurs.

Best of luck in your recovery and hope that you find another member in the military with a similar situation as yours, who can give you some input.

 

[Krodgers]

Hi Krodgers.

Hopefully there will be some members who can help with your specific question.

The one piece of advice that I will give you is to keep up with your echos. This is especially important for a young person with a tissue valve, as the young tend to go through them very quickly.
At age 19, you are probably looking at getting 5 to 10 years from your valve, possibly less.

I point this out because once you get a year or two away from your valve surgery, you probably won't think about your valve much anymore and will be busy living life. This is as it should be, just remember to be diligent with your follow up appointments. I also say this because I know how I was in my 20s and was not the best at getting medical check ups as often as I should have.

So, live life to the fullest, but get your echos at least every year, maybe even every 6 months. The last thing that you want to do is to forget about your follow up visits and then have SVD sneak up on you, and end up getting your next procedure in the ER. Due you your age, you will be facing several procudures during your life and you want to get them done before the point where irreversible damage occurs.

Best of luck in your recovery and hope that you find another member in the military with a similar situation as yours, who can give you some input.

Appreciate the reply my cardiologist said he would expect my valve to last 10 or maybe even 20 years if I’m lucky I have the mitris pericardial valve supposed to be the best around is what he said.

 

[Chuck C]

Appreciate the reply my cardiologist said he would expect my valve to last 10 or maybe even 20 years if I’m lucky I have the mitris pericardial valve supposed to be the best around is what he said.

That is the Edwards Reslilia valve. There is hope that it will last that long for young patients and I really hope this is the case for you. Although I chose a mechanical valve myself at age 53, if I did choose tissue, I would have gone with Resilia. In my view, if a young person is choosing tissue, this is probably the best choice.

But, do get those follow up echos. There is hope that it will last this long, but the clinical data is not there yet to support this. I'm going to send you a link to Edward's website and you will note the following disclaimer, in the "very small print".

"† No clinical data are available that evaluate the long-term impact of RESILIA tissue in patients."

That being said, with each passing year, the "hope" gets a little stronger. So, I would be hopeful- and there is reason to be, but I would still get relatively frequent echos anyway, in case this valve ends up being similar to previous tissue valves in terms of longevity.


https://www.edwards.com/healthcare-professionals/products-services/surgical-heart/mitris-resilia

 

[pellicle]

Hi

I’m active duty navy 19 y/o with a year and a half of service and had valve replacment replaced with tissue valve 6 months ago

I can't comment about the military things but I just want to reiterate and underscore the importance of what chuck says here

The one piece of advice that I will give you is to keep up with your echos. This is especially important for a young person with a tissue valve, as the young tend to go through them very quickly.
At age 19, you are probably looking at getting 5 to 10 years from your valve, possibly less.

because these things can go from fine, fine, fine, no problems to "oh, we have a problem to then "this is now getting urgent"

this is because the way that tissue valves fail is not linear.

so the non-linear failure mode may seem like its doing better longer until it isn't.

So definitely keep up those yearly checks.

 

[Superman]

I’m rather surprised you haven’t been medically discharged yet. I have no experience in such matters. I know someone who was medically discharged due to a collapsed lung. Had enlisted but not yet started basic. Spontaneous Pneumothorax I think it’s called. One time deal, never happened again. But they wouldn’t let him start basic.

 

[johninsd]

Don't settle for a medical discharge - look into a disability retirement - might have to talk to a lawyer -

 

[Chuck C]

I wonder why they would determine that he would not be deployable and would discharge him? He has a tissue valve. No anticoagulation. It would seem that he should be able to do all activities expected of any other service member, once he is fully recovered from surgery. There are professional athletes who have had valve surgery and then gone to play again.

https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com...t comes to heart,We have heart valve surgery.

 

[pellicle]

I wonder why they would determine that he would not be deployable and would discharge him? He has a tissue valve. No anticoagulation

Conservative approach?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Superman]

I wonder why they would determine that he would not be deployable and would discharge him? He has a tissue valve. No anticoagulation. It would seem that he should be able to do all activities expected of any other service member, once he is fully recovered from surgery. There are professional athletes who have had valve surgery and then gone to play again.

https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com...t comes to heart,We have heart valve surgery.

Plenty of healthy folks to choose from without congenital heart defects. Why risk something from a known condition creating an issue for your team in the field when there are enough unknowns to worry about? Makes perfect sense to me that a congenital heart defect would make one ineligible for service.